Biography of Ely H. CookOrleans County, NY Biographies

Cook, Ely H., born in 1836 in Clarendon, Orleans county, is a descendant from Revolutionary stock. His father.
Joseph L., was a son of Elijah. The latter was a son of Jared, who was a son of Jedediah Cook of Killingly, Conn.
Elijah Cook settled in Verona, N. Y. Jedediah, the father of Jared, lived to the age of 104 years, making the journey
from Killingly, Conn., to Verona, N.Y., a distance of over 200 miles, on horseback when he was 100 years old. Elijah
Cook enlisted in the American army at the beginning of the Revolutionary war, and served until the close of the
war. He came from Stephentown, N. Y., to Monroe county, in 1817, with four Sons, settling in the town of Clarkson.
Jared married Charity Knapp, of Greenwich, Conn. Elijah, his son, married Charity Lockwood, of Killingly, Conn.,
and had thirteen children. His oldest daughter, Betsey, lived 100 years and 5 months. Joseph L. Cook, with his
brother Jared, settled in what is now School District No. 12, in Clarendon, some time previous to 1821, keeping
"bachelor's hall" in a primitive log shanty with its bark roof, a neighbor, Mrs. Asa Glidden, baking
their bread for them until Jared married; then Joseph L. lived with them until January 21. 1826, when he married
Alma, sister of Elijah Foote, the first judge of Orleans county. Joseph L. Cook's youngest sister, Lydia, married
Orange, a brother of Judge Foote. Joseph L. was a captain in the State militia at the same time that his brother
Jared was colonel, when it was the custom of the men on general training day to go about early in the morning,
to awaken their officers. One careless man forgot to withdraw, his iron ramrod from his musket, when on firing,
it stuck in a log underneath the bed on which the brothers were sleeping. Joseph bought out his brother Jared.
who removed to Michigan in 1836. Joseph had one son by his first wife, Chauncey, who died in 1848, aged twenty
two years. Mrs. Cook died January 24, 1834, and June 22, of the same year. he maried Nancy, daughter of John Hawley,
of Clarendon (a soldier in the war of 1812). Their children were: Sarah and Ely H. Mrs. Cook died December 18,
1837, and March 18, 1838, Mr. Cook married third, Betsey Rockwell, of Danbury, Conn., and they had one daughter,
Alma F. Mr. Cook died March 11, 1842. Joseph L. Cook was one of the thriving men of his time. A Whig in politics,
he served his town as school commissioner, overseer of the poor, assessor, and highway commissioner. In religion
a Free Baptist, and a deacon in the church. In 1857, Ely H. Cook married Clara R., daughter of Alphens Foster,
of Barre, and settled on the farm of his father. Mr. Cook removed to Holley in 1871, and engaged in the mercantile
business for three years. In 1877 he returned to his farm in Clarendon, but sold his farm and removed to Holley
again in 1889, where he now resides. He was a Republican in politics until 1880, when he became a Prohibitionist.
He began teaching in the Sunday school in 1851, and is still a Sunday school teacher. He was the superintendent
of the Holley Presbyterian Sunday school for eighteen years, and has been an officer in the Presbyterian church
since 1867. His daughters, Cora A. married J. B. Stevens, of Dayton, O.; Hattie A. married Henry C. Hazen, and
has been with him a missionary in India since 1884; Sara J. is preceptress of Middleport Union school.